12/28/2009

FREE YOU! FREE YOU!

Jim Wolpman, a dear California cohort of mine of more than half a century's standing, has dedicated a substantial portion of his retirement years to laboriously assembling a website documenting the brief but glorious history of the Midpeninsula Free University of Palo Alto, California, circa 1965-72. Jim has written a fine, lively, thorough history of the Free U's sometimes unseemly doings, studded throughout with links to many, many pages of the Free You, our wonderfully eccentric, idiosyncratic magazine, of which I was an editor. It's a grand thing, this website, an essential piece of quintessential Americana; anyone who hopes to understand the 60s needs to get acquainted with it right away.

In the spirit of the Free You, I'm reminded of a recent effort that I helped bring into the world, Horsefeathers: A Journal of the Arts. Horsefeathers came about because of my role as Temporary Executive Big Cheese of English 507-001, a University of Kentucky mostly- undergraduate creative writing workshop. It's a gathering of the work of thirteen utterly various writers—ranging in age from about 22 to 65, five women and eight men who are, by some happy accident of natural selection, about as diverse, ethnically and experientially, as any random group of thirteen students on this campus could possibly be — the only title that made any sense was one that made no sense at all.

You can read all about it, and my take on Free You and similar efforts, here.

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